Question: How did you sense that you had found your teacher? How does it happen?

Answer: It is impossible to describe. I see that people who are with me when I give talks, they too begin to feel something because it is an influence of the upper light.

When it acts on a Kli (vessel) that has not completely opened it causes a person to feel emotional and increases sensitivity within a person. It is called a small state. It is like a child who begins to cry because he is unable to define his state or absorb within himself something that should happen to him. The same is occurring with us.

Question: Does it mean that the sensation that it will certainly happen here with this teacher at this place depends on the influence of the light? Is the future light acting upon the person this way?

Answer: Of course! The surrounding light (Ohr Makif) is the future light. This is why it is called surrounding. After all, it is still unable to come into you. Since you are so little in relation to it, you feel that you have found something! But what, you do not know.

Question: Meaning, as if the light is saying, “Hold on to me, there will be something here”?

Answer: Yes, of course. With that, the person cannot vanish anymore. It is already impossible to break away from this source.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10

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Question: What is the right way to go against one’s egoistic desires?

Answer: You cannot overcome your egoistic desires if you do not resist. Above all your desires, you need to build a connection with the Creator.

After all, everything that arises in you now gives you a feeling directed against the unity of the Creator, against His existence, and you must behave as if He exists, as if He is the one and only source of everything that happens, who is absolutely good and doing only good.

And you get a completely different, constantly changing picture against these settings. But you rise above them and act, saying: “You give me these feelings, these thoughts, these relationships with everyone, and this attitude to everyone, you build this worthless world around me. And I will treat You above all this as good, bringing good, the only one who exists, and the cause of everything that happens. And in general, all this around me does not exist, there is only You!”

Suppose you are talking to me now, which means that I do not exist; you treat me as the Creator’s influence on you, and I do not exist. The same for me. Even those thoughts and feelings that arise in me, it is You who arouse them. And who am I? I am only an expert point that feels all this and is tuned to perceive it this way. And then the soul begins to develop from this expert point.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Get Over Yourself” 2/15/14

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Question: There are times when someone asks you a question and you answer it very briefly, and sometimes you do not even want to give an answer. It also happens that we ask the same question, and you pour out your soul and open wide spaces before us. How do we catch this moment when you can say something?

Answer: If I cannot answer a question directly, but have the opportunity to answer it in a different way, then I answer.

Kabbalists have large limitations in what they can say and what they cannot. In addition, it is possible that by the time you ask the question for the second or third time, the state of the group has already changed. This is why I can talk about the topic that interests you. That is, there are many different conditions. The difference may even be in several days.

Comment: Sometimes you say that it is impossible to talk about something at all, and at other times you address this topic and develop it widely.

My Response: It is because the time has come. It does not depend on me. I am just a transmitter here.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13

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Workshops are a spiritual act because they force people not to argue with each other, to complete each other, to be equal, to speak on a certain topic set by the workshop leader, and then think about it for a while.

If during the workshop five to ten questions are raised that people discuss, then this helps them build some kind of system within themselves and identify goals and stages of their development. As a result, they create a spiritual space between themselves based on mutual bestowal and kindness.

By discussing the topics of getting out of egoism and rising above it, they build between themselves that clearing on which they want to feel the manifestation of the Creator.

A workshop is the state where a person builds his spiritual vessel, which is a common spiritual vessel. Moreover, he begins to understand that this is outside of himself, that this is a way out of himself— the implementation of the method.

During the workshop, a person correctly expresses himself, his “speaking” level; that is, a man is called Adam, similar to the Creator. Of course, there are many erect-walking creatures; a rooster is also erect-walking. And a person is called “speaking” because he can express bestowal and love and lead another person to bestowal and love.

Therefore, today there is nothing more effective than workshops in which we all are permeated with one goal, one idea.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Do We Need Workshops” 4/5/14

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Question: What is the effect of family workshops when, say, five couples sit and talk to each other? In theory, they share things that they may not have shared directly.

Answer: Yes, as a rule, what a wife cannot say to her husband or husband to his wife, they say through others.

The reason for the effectiveness of such communication is that people create a common field, a predisposition to openness. As they say, a bad example is contagious, but in this case, it is a good example. After all, when the others open up, it draws you in, it affects you, and you unconsciously get carried away with others and start saying things that you could not say to your other half alone.

Question: How is it that such an intimate conversation seems to come out so easily?

Answer: Because people see that there is nothing intimate here. The rest of the families have the same issues as they do. What intimate matter might that be? Only shame (an egoistic quality), arrogance, fear of falling in the eyes of others, and so on.

But when, without self-reproach, without saying “we have it even worse,” everyone simply and frankly speaks, then the correct relationships between genders, between spouses (this is not the same thing), between parents regarding children, and so on are clarified. This greatly reduces family tensions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Family Happiness” 12/7/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can humans be tamed?“

We need to develop ourselves as human beings beyond our animate level of existence, and it is possible with a certain kind of education.

Developing ourselves as human beings means learning and balancing ourselves with the integral laws of nature operating on our lives. If we learn how to positively connect among each other in human society, with altruistic attitudes replacing our current egoistic attitudes, we then develop ourselves beyond the animate level of existence and become human beings in the fullest sense of the term.

First, we need to provide for our animate lives, giving our physical bodies the food, sex and family that they require, then after taking care of those essentials, we can begin our human development. We then need to learn who and what we are, where we are from, why we exist, how we can develop ourselves, how we can control our human development, what our attitude to our surrounding society should be, what society’s attitude should be toward us, and how we can develop together harmoniously, i.e. us in relation to society, and society in relation to us.

We need to supply ourselves with this development that will make us human beings. Unfortunately, I see nobody understanding what it means to develop a human being, and we thus fail to realize such a process. One of the outcomes of our lack of development into human beings is our inability to understand the younger generation. We become increasingly detached from them, and do not know what will happen with them or how to guide them in a beneficial direction. We thus let life unfold as it does, into a proliferation of problems and crises.

Very simply, we need to learn what nature wants from us, and to develop in order to balance with nature’s demands toward us. If we meet those demands, we can then build a harmonious and peaceful world, one that is in balance with nature.
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Based on the video “Can Humans be Tamed?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Alexandr Hovhannisyan on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is Behavioral change?“

Inside us is a model of our surrounding environment. It is where we create and feel the environment. We receive impressions from our surrounding environment, which in turn builds its systems into the inner model that we host.

People specifically can develop inner models of their environment much more than animals. For instance, a dog can feel its master, and a cat can feel the moods of people in its vicinity. A human being, however, builds a model of the environment within that includes the universe, nature and human society. We relate to our environment through our inner model, and our environment also lives in that model. Accordingly, we interact with and feel the environment, beginning life on the human level.

Behavioral change begins from our inner models, which incorporate with and feel our environments, and which develop attitudes in relation to those models. If we are critical of other people’s behaviors, we might simply ask them, “Don’t you understand what you’re doing?” “Don’t you understand…?” means that we actually ask whether the person has a certain inner model, i.e. a set of attitudes that have developed toward people and nature, and why that person cannot understand something from the model they host.

Some people are internally deaf, i.e. they cannot build these models within themselves, and likewise they have a certain level of detachment from their environment. They do not understand what is required of them. It is like babies who have not yet developed such systems within themselves. They observe other people but do not understand what everyone wants. There are many such people. Most people live their lives without the accurate inner models of the universe, nature, society and what is required of them in this vast system.

Building accurate inner models of our environment—the universe, nature and human society—is the education we need today. The behaviors that we assume depend on the measure to which we, according to our inner models, can correctly work with them. We then realize those models in practice through our behavior toward the world. Behavioral change is thus the result of our finding the correct model of the universe, nature and human society.
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Based on the video “What Is Behavioral Change?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Eduardo Sánchez on Unsplash.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Question: Any book leaves a person with a set of impressions. As one reads, a person’s imagination soars and depicts all kinds of things.

You said Kabbalistic books leave the same impression on different people. Did I understand correctly that they give such a clear imprint of certain states that fantasy has no place here?

Answer: Of course not. On the contrary, when a person begins to study Kabbalah all sorts of fantasies gradually disappear, a person becomes very grounded, engages in science, and understands that he exists in a system of forces, and he needs to learn to interact with them.

The more we advance and study man, the less we fantasize. What fantasies?! These are all kinds of electric fields in our brain that affect our biological forms. At the same time, some chemicals get released that also interact with each other, and so on.

That is, there are no feelings. There will be feelings, but only when they become independent of matter. After all, being given something to smell, for example, will produce certain sensations. This shows how much our feelings depend on the processes that occur in us.

While we must rise above these processes with pure logic. Pure logic—after the restriction (screen and reflected light), when I come into contact with the one upper force, with all my strength and scrutiny, and start working together with it on the basis called Zivug de haka’a (coupling).

On one hand, the coupling is a rejection because I reject my ego, but do not discard it, I do not destroy it, but simply push it away to connect with the upper force. And to the extent that I can include my ego, that is, my correctly aimed desires, I include them.

This is a very exact science, there are no sentiments in Kabbalah. It contains precise laws, formulas, forces, and their mutual rapprochement and distancing, and how by connecting with each other at different levels, they form all kinds of shapes: right and left lines. This way, certain feelings are evoked but only to control this process.

We rise from one sensation to another until we begin to feel the Creator. But all these feelings are not in us, not in our ego, but in the quality of bestowal that we develop in ourselves. It is an upper reasoning that is not based on our feelings because feelings come after reason.

First, the mind evolves, which develops self-control, understanding of all actions, and only after that does a feeling from you emerge. This is a completely different level of existence—beyond our present nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Recommended Books” 12/12/13

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Comment: Let’s say you start a dialogue with a student and can talk with him for an hour. You say that this is for the benefit of the group.

My Response: It is not him I am talking to. What does he have to do with it? He only awakens this topic, this desire, but this is not he himself, and I am, in a way, answering not to him.

I am talking about the group, about the Creator, about the world, about correction, connection, integrity, and about the way to bring it all to one common system in which the entire universe will be revealed to all of humanity. What does the student have to do with it? It is just that the required awakening came through him, and he voiced a question to which I should give an answer.

I do not look at the student at all. Through him, a question comes to me from somewhere, from the general thought of creation, from the common system. I now need to adjust this system a little, to twist a couple of resistors, a capacitor, a coil, an oscillating circuit, and make some adjustments. This is what I am doing.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 12/21/13

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Question: Alexander writes: “There has been no good news at all in recent months. I can see from my family, relatives, and friends how they turn off empathy. They just do not look at anything, do not listen, and do not start conversations if they are dangerous for their peace of mind. And I understand them. A person cannot live in stress all the time. But if we stop worrying and empathizing, what do we become? What are we turning into? What will happen to us, to the world? Please explain.”

Answer: I think the world is beginning to see the light. The world is beginning to realize where it has driven itself or where it has allowed itself to be driven. And I think next year will be a year of real epiphany. The turning point. When even America and especially Europe will change.

Comment: Everyone is awaiting the next year with horror, with great fear.

My Response: On the contrary, I believe that this will be the year of awakening, the realization that there definitely cannot be a nuclear war. And there can be no war at all. We have already seen this, and we are seeing it now. In general, we have reached a good finale.

Question: But Alexander asks about empathy: will we lose it or will we not lose it? What will happen to it, to empathy?

Answer: No empathy is needed. We must just understand that we have to do everything to give the world the right idea of what is good and what is bad. Everyone should realize that no one has the right to raise their hand against each other. No one has the right to threaten with force. That is when we will see the real world.

Question: What feelings will prevail in humanity, in men, in this new world to which you are going? What will a person think about?

Answer: A person will think only about one thing: how to develop in the direction of good, how he can show kindness to everyone.

Comment: I want it so much! And it seems that it is so far away.

My Response: No. They will come to this, of course. We have nowhere to go. But we need to talk about it more. And try to make it come true faster.

Question: But this point of goodness, connection, and so on, can it awaken in a person in whom it did not exist? He, on the contrary, was completely different, he was a hawk. Can this point manifest itself in him?

Answer: He will get this feeling that this is the way humanity should live.

Question: Where does it come from to him—to such a person?

Answer: From the environment. Through the air.

Question: He will wake up one day, there will be a snap, and he will say: “How did I live?”

Answer: Yes. That there is no other way to live. That you can only live by giving, as it is no longer possible to prove to people that you will not achieve anything by “With a stick to happiness.”

Comment: It usually happens like this: when you try to pressure someone, humiliate someone, it comes back to you like a boomerang, and then a person starts to think. But you are saying that it is also possible in a different way. It is possible that there will suddenly be such a revolution in a person.

My Response: I think there is a very strong accumulation of all kinds of negative feelings in humanity, and they should eventually give their result.

Question: Will they change? Will they become the exact opposite?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: God willing!

My Response: We must have hope!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/3/22

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